Fleets have the ability to affect an adversary’s use of the seas for transportation. Nations have in numerous occasions exercised this power in order to ravage their opponent’s trade in times of conflict with the purpose of diminishing their military might. Great naval thinkers like Mahan and Corbett have described this use of seapower during conflicts in great depth but theories regarding the use of seapower to affect a nation’s peacetime economy in order to achieve limited political goals is lacking. This thesis attempts to analyze the use of seapower in the form of economic sanctions to answer the question; “How is seapower exercised in economic sanctions?” in order to remedy this. The results show that seapower is mostly used to halt the inward flow of goods to a nation and general sanctions are more often used than sanctions targeting specific commodities. What these sanctions aim to achieve is often to limit military capacity and to disrupt military aggression. This thesis comes to the conclusions that a force capable of operating anywhere on the globe for an extended period of time is vital for the effectiveness of economic sanctions, seapower is a necessary part of the enforcement of economic sanctions and that naval theory has been too preoccupied with large scale conflicts and neglected the use of seapower to achieve limited political goals with economic measures during times of peace.

Krisen i den globala leveranskedjan för containrar blev tydligt synlig 2020 och pågår fortfarande. Ett betydande avtryck har lämnats, inte bara på marknaden för containertransporter utan också på världsekonomin som helhet. Det kan därför vara fördelaktigt att få en djupare förståelse för de drivande faktorerna i denna kris för att kunna hantera bättre eller förhindra liknande utmaningar i framtiden. Syftet med denna studie var att identifiera och beskriva en kedja av händelser med deras bidragande faktorer och konsekvenser som leder till att containerkrisen börjar år 2020. Följande forskningsfrågor ställs: 1.Vilka är de mest bidragande faktorerna som störde balansen i containertransporter? 2.Hur påverkas sjöcontainertransporten och vilken roll har den händelsekedjan som resulterade i containerkrisen 2020-202X?  En kvalitativ litteraturgenomgång genomfördes för denna studie. Dessutom bestod den datainsamlingsmetoden som användes för denna studie av sekundärt vetenskapligt material, men även icke-vetenskapliga artiklar, inklusive nyhetsdatabaser och maritima databaser.  Studien identifierade de viktigaste bidragande faktorerna till containerkrisen att vara Covid-19 och Suezkanal incidenten. Vidare föreslås det även att handelskriget mellan Kina och USA har varit en bakomliggande orsak för denna kris. Konsekvenserna som fastställdes var bristen på tomma containrar, förändringar i efterfrågan av varor före och under pandemin och störningar i leveranskedjan där förseningar, överbelastning i hamnar och ekonomiska följder spelade roll i den globala handeln, särskilt containertransporter. / The crisis in the global container supply chain clearly became visible in 2020 and is still ongoing. An imprint has indeed been left not only on the markets of container shipping transport but also on the world economy as a whole. Therefore, it may be beneficial to gain an in-depth understanding of the driving factors of this crisis, that in order to be able to deal better or even prevent similar future challenges. The purpose of this study was therefore to identify and describe a chain of events with their contributing factors and consequences that lead to the start of the container crisis in 2020. This study’s research questions were: 1.What are the most important contributing factors that disrupted the balance in container transport? 2.How is maritime containertransport affected and what is the role of the chain of events that resulted in the container crisis 2020-202X?  A qualitative literature review was conducted for this study. Moreover, the data collection method used for this paper consisted of secondary academic material, but also non-scientific articles, including news databases and maritime databases.  This study has identified that the main contributing factors to the container crisis were the Covid-19 and the Suez channel. However, it is also suggested that the trade war between USA and China has also served as the backbone of this crisis. Moreover, the identified concequences were shortage in containers, changes in the demand of goods during and prior to the pandemic and in further, disruptions in the supply chain, including schedule delays, congestions in ports and financial consequences in the global trade, specifically that of container transport.